In praise of #4, and #14

Watching the Rio Olympics with my daughter:
“Dad, what did our champion do last night in the Olympics?”
“She came eleventh.”
“Eleventh? Pffff! Disaster.”
“Well, she ranked ahead of 3.5 billion other women, and I am certain that she is better than 3.5 billion men -give or take a dozen- as well. I’ll be shitting myself with fatherly pride if you make it in the top-eleven of anything in the world when you grow up. I haven’t so far.”
The next time I’ll try to work on the “our champion” thing. She is so young and yet this came out very naturally as if it is imprinted on our DNA or something.
This flags/anthems/team-this/team-that feels to me a bit self-centered and old. They might try for once to drop the anthems and show a two-minute video of the effort, the determination and the passion it took for all of these men and women to make it to the top-four. Or the top-fourteen for that matter.
I love the Olympics. Are they about the countries though or the athletes? About passports or human spirit?